Don't Judge

when your bald head
is the same color as your pants

perhaps a fantasy has faded
a become a dried strawberry

try rehydrating it with water
try eating it with peanut butter

Winter/Spring 2016

icicle stilettos
a natural cluster of icicles
as if dripping from a cave
or a suburban doorway
a duration piece
for girls who go clubbing
and want flats by
the end of the night
"melt me down"

California Roommates

the underlying story
is of our friendship

the wooden floored room
resembled an art school lobby
near St. Mark's place

set up with folding chairs
Cosi sitting in the middle
surrounded by accessories
talking out loud about our friendship

a voiceover

On her friendship with me
what it would be like to live
with me some place else
with a different layout of rooms
rooms with wooden floors
and drywalls

underlying the sporting event
the presentation, the projection?
wet, wintery shoes on the wood

a guy in a wet suit who is not the master at this sporting event
but probably is a master at swimming
is there to be challenged
by a master, and then by me

everyone is watching us fight for some dollar bills
but this is a real start to a real thing that now maybe
he is a master at

wet paint warnings everywhere
in the old firehouse art school
projections of St. Mark's place
on the drywall

I am up on the windowsill
in my wetsuit
a physical match! the resistance is hilarious
light-hearted
like a wrestling match with your dad when you're young

everyone is laughing
a dollar bill rips in half!
I was laughing so hard
I thought I might cry

I was still somehow the new girl
comfortable yet critically observed
in a wet suit on the windowsill
still hearing "on friendship" by Cosi
still confused about moving out
to a place with wooden floors

unsettled, possessed

rewound, our match
is spliced with images
of juicy oranges

Dusty Bis

III.
I think about dissipating into the sky
or falling from it
Into the still scene below
Like printer paper laid out in sheets side by side
An improbable checkerboard
The first third of your life is over when you turn four
And the years get smaller and smaller from then on
Like ants marching off into the desert
Or perhaps through one big Dusty Bistro
All bananas and Chinese breakfast tea
Rhinestones on tip jars
In 2016 I want at least four times four
salty seasons
Give me Fifty Senses
A jingling coin purse
A soft wind and my twin
We are ants on a trail
.....Black square....White square......
Black square....White square..........
That's the checkered floor
A jingling coin purse
My twin and soft wind
When the plane turns like a top
On the tip of the wing
I'm just playing
Plain games

Xmas

There are demons among us
possessions left and right
We encircle the sand pit made of bricks
I pierce a demon in the heart
with a long stake, a tool, a rake
she lays down in the fire
With black hair and pointed eyebrows
S & M but a ragged sooty gown
I know she should turn to ash and burn like paper
turn black and curl into tiny pieces that lift into the sky
But she is half doing that and half defying the exorcism trick
she won't die
A Christmas demon
Red bricks and black leather
I sink into the corner of the narrow cave
Satan is Real sang the Louvin Brothers

Coquito

tiny, dynamic ghosts
black shadows on the attic ceiling
I'm not scared of them
ghosts in the boxed chardonnay
can't seem them but
the wine came out brown
returning the box of The Borrowers
to the Wine Library
where the box didn't even
come from in the first place
but the Wine Library
is absolutely where the Borrowers belong
with all those dark wooden alcoves
and secret doors leading to
tasting rooms?
cheese samples, crystal displays
3 miniature dimensions
I thought maybe I needed glasses

accidentally crushing a straw angel in the attic window
ghosts in the fridge
on the legs of a table
an empty space for a stove